t care for her. What am I
going to do to give her up?"

It seemed to Harry that it was a situation requiring some active
measures. He couldn't realize that he had fallen hopelessly in love
without some rights accruing to him for the possession of the object of
his passion. Quiet resignation under relinquishment of any thing he
wanted was not in his line. And when it appeared to him that his
surrender of Laura would be the withdrawal of the one barrier that kept
her from ruin, it was unreasonable to expect that he could see how to
give her up.

Harry had the most buoyant confidence in his own projects always; he saw
everything connected with himself in a large way and in rosy lines. This
predominance of the imagination over the judgment gave that appearance of
exaggeration to his conversation and to his communications with regard to
himself, which sometimes conveyed the impression that he was not speaking
the truth. His acquaintances had been known to say that they invariably
allowed a half for shrinkage in his statements, and held the other half
under advisement for confirmation.

Philip in this case could not tell from Harry's story exactly how much
encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of
winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag"
appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted
itself now and then in a comical imitation of its old self.

Philip wanted time to look about him before he decided what to do.
He was not familiar with Washington, and it was difficult to adjust his
feelings and perceptions to its peculiarities. Coming out of the sweet
sanity of the Bolton household, this was by contrast the maddest Vanity
Fair one could conceive. It seemed to him a feverish, unhealthy
atmosphere in which lunacy would be easily developed. He fancied that
everybody attached to himself an exaggerated importance, from the fact of
being at the national capital, the center of political influence, the
fountain of patronage, preferment, jobs and opportunities.

People were introduced to each other as from this or that state, not from
cities or towns, and this gave a largeness to their representative
feeling. All the women talked politics as naturally and glibly as they
talk fashion or literature elsewhere. There was always some exciting
topic at the Capitol, or some huge slander was rising up like a miasmatic
exhalation from the Potomac, t